Some observers sceptically asked what use the new technology offered, failing to spot the opportunities it could afford. American scientist and statesman Benjamin Franklin scoffed at their short-sightedness, retorting, ‘what is the use of a new-born child?’

Ballooning hit eighteenth-century society with a bang, quickly becoming a fashionable spectator sport with men and women routinely risking their lives for the experience. A thriving market in balloon trinkets sprang up, with everything from fans to delftware bowls to delightful decorative snuffboxes depicting the birth of flight:

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